Auntie Lynn wrote:Lost what job? That’s news to me as I am going there now! Never lost a job in my life. All the good people that used to be here have already long since left...

They should have taken you along with them-I have a feeling your days in this forum are numbered. If only you could have been like one of your former heros. If you're so good why not put that material on youtube instead of the nonsense you have over there-do it quick because like I said I think your days here are numbered!

Chalkperson wrote:Unmasking members and posting personal information and photographs is treading the thin line that separates talking from stalking her, Lenny.

Irrespective of the conversations between the pair of you there is no justification for doing this.

At least in my opinion there isn't.

Chalkie thanks-I think you have a point there-the info was readily available at you tube and facebook and very tempting to use-still my goal is to take her on whenever she becomes abusive to me or others but definitely not to stalk her! Regards, Len

This story confirms among other things that one of the Paris attackers entered Europe posing as a Syrian Migrant. Do other sources confirm this?

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

rwetmore wrote:Here is Trump's first press conference after the Paris attacks. He answers a ton of questions from the media on what he would specifically do to combat and defeat ISIS, and other related things:

I agree with everything he says in this press conference. He's looking more and more Presidential by the day and just thrives in these press conferences.

First, Trump claims that if the US and/or its allies had "taken" Iraq's oil after defeating the Saddam Hussein regime, "We wouldn't have ISIS right now." Bull. The Middle East isn't as simple as Trump's simple mind.

Trump: "If you were a Muslim from Syria, you could get into this country - one of the easier places to come in." Bull. You and I know this isn't true, because we've read the Huffington Post article about how refugees from anywhere are vetted before they're allowed to come here, a process that can take 2-3 years each.

Trump: "If you were a Christian from Syria, it was almost impossible to get in, and yet the Christians were having their heads cut off." This has to be bull, that the United States has discriminated among refugees from Syria according to their religion, and against Christians in favor of Muslims. Trump just says it, he doesn't back it up.

Trump: "In 2000 I wrote a book, I said 'Osama bin Laden, you better take him out, he's a bad guy.' That was before the World Trade Center came down." So what? In 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa urging Muslims to attack the U.S.; President Clinton's Department of Justice obtained an indictment in absentia against bin Laden; and Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack against bin Laden's camp in Afghanistan, intending to kill him. That's two years before Trump wrote his book.

Trump: "I think Obama wants 250,000 of the migrants, I think he wants them to come in." Bull. Where does Trump get this stuff? He says "A pretty good source" but says nothing about the alleged source or why it deserves belief.

Trump: "In my book I predicted terrorism, which some say was an even better prediction than Osama bin Laden." Bull. You can't "predict" what's already happened. The first attack on the World Trade Center was in 1993, by Ramzi Yousef and his followers who had trained with bin Laden and were financed by Al Qaeda. That's seven years before Trump wrote his book. Three of the conspirators were arrested and convicted in 1996.

Thus Donald Trump, a legend in his own mind. This is within just the first five minutes of the press conference. The "reporters," if that's what they were, fed him nothing but softballs and asked no follow-up questions; Trump was never pressed to provide factual backup for his claims.

At that point I stopped listening; I have a very limited tolerance for baloney. But if you can quote anything Trump said during the remaining 15 minutes, anything at all, that you can show for a fact to be true, and that's important enough to make you think him "presidential," I'll bet I can show you that it too is bull.

I agree his predictions aren't that spectacular or genius, but they were accurate. I also haven't read the books so I'm not sure about all the details of his predictions. You fail to mention also that Clinton turned down a chance to get Bin Laden, though I forget what year that was. The rest you're just proclaiming to be 'bull' without really any support. Moreover, the meat of what he says is after the first five minutes where he talks about what he would do to combat ISIS.

BTW, I never considered giving Trump my vote due to any of those predictions by him, and never really gave any of them much thought even (well, until now I guess). He was right, so he's touting it to potential voters. That's his style...he's very confident in himself. Aside from his policy positions, it's his energy and leadership qualities that a lot people, myself included, find most appealing. But his eccentric personality still makes him a wild card.

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

This from Amazon - y’know, my little hairy potbellies, rwetmore’s original header just
might have been right - everywhere except here - I give you:
============
The suspected mastermind of last week's Paris massacre, and some of the other attackers,
had exploited the Syrian refugee crisis to slip into France unnoticed, Prime Minister
Manuel Valls revealed Friday, the same day the French Senate approved extending the
nation's state of emergency by three months.

It also emerged that Abdelhamid Abaaoud may have even taken part in the attacks on the
ground in Paris, as a French security official said a surveillance camera captured the
alleged ringleader inside a nearby subway station as the massacre unfolded. Valls also said
another person died from the attacks, bringing the total number of dead to 130.

A third body was found after Wednesday's apartment raid north of Paris that left Abaaoud
and his cousin dead, the French prosecutor's office reported Friday. A police source told
Agence France-Presse the cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, did not blow herself up, as was
previously reported. The suicide bomber was a man, the source said.

Abaaoud was seen at the Croix de Chavaux metro station in the suburb of Montreuil at
10:14 p.m. on Nov. 13, the French security official told The Associated Press. The black
Seat car used in the attacks was found abandoned near the subway station, investigators
say.

Valls said some of the Paris attackers had taken advantage of the massive influx of
migrants into Europe escaping war in the Middle East.

Should I change the title again to read "One of the PARIS TERRORISTS was a Syrian Migrant"?

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

Back on topic - our real topic, not rwetmore's subject for the thread.

Third Body Is Found in Rubble of Police Raid Near Paris
By AURELIEN BREEDEN and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA
NOV. 20, 2015

PARIS — The French authorities said on Friday that they had discovered a third body in the wreckage of an apartment after the police raid that killed Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian militant suspected of planning the Paris terror attacks. Mr. Abaaoud’s cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, 26, also died in the raid Wednesday on an apartment in the suburb of St.-Denis; her passport was found in a handbag inside.

The third person who died in the raid has not yet been identified, said Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor.

Officials on Friday backed away from their initial theory that Ms. Aitboulahcen had detonated a suicide vest during the raid, saying that it was the third person in the apartment who did...

And further, whyinhell would I want to do Youtube when I never even lift the fallboard
until all financial matters have been settled. Doesn’t anybody out there understand the
music biz? I am told I am that good - I don’t say that, the people who hire me say that.
And get my daughter’s picture off this thread. She is an international figure and not a
party to any of this mess. I don’t need loony lenny obsessing after her too. Why don’t I
sue CMG for allowing the lies, misrepresentation, calumny and harassment to continue?
Then you tired old stoats would have no place to go. Where is this site monitored from -
India? And if you are going to come after me you will have to be MUCH more clever,
witty, insightful and funny...

Auntie Lynn wrote:Doesn’t anybody out there understand the
music biz? I am told I am that good - I don’t say that, the people who hire me say that.
And get my daughter’s picture off this thread. She is an international figure and not a
party to any of this mess.

Nonsense, you're in addition to everything else a big blowheard braggart-you've been bragging about your talents throughout-how about some proof--also my wife certainly was not a party to any of this either but that didn't stop you--fortunately everyone has gotten used to all your insults by now but that won't stop me from taking you on. Thank goodness that photo is of your daughter-now I've seen one of you-ugh! A constant volley of insults to us and no one to bounce you off our forum-very sad. It boggles the mind. Regards, Len

Chalkperson wrote:Len, please remove the photo you published from Facebook.

see the above post.

Thx

Chalkie I did it but reluctantly-I hate showing any signs of weakness to one such as this big braggart who insults people at will. Okay I admit I wasn't even sure how to delete that photo--I think I accomplished it! Regards, Len

Chalkperson wrote:Len, please remove the photo you published from Facebook.

see the above post.

Thx

Chalkie I did it but reluctantly-I hate showing any signs of weakness to one such as this big braggart who insults people at will. Okay I admit I wasn't even sure how to delete that photo--I think I accomplished it! Regards, Len

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

Yet again, you provide a right-wing talking head rather than impartial journalism, let alone the primary source. Can you provide a link to Senator Sessions's actual statement?

At first look, I'm not impressed. Some of those named by Breitbart came to the U.S. some time ago, one as early as 2007; many were refugees from Bosnia, and the war there ended in 1995, after which I suppose Bosnians were no longer eligible for refugee status. (I don't know that, but I don't know it isn't so.) No proof is offered that they were radicals at that time.

We don't deny refugee status to people on the off-chance that after arriving in the U.S., they may some day become radicals. We know all too well that American citizens long resident or even born here can be radicalized and conduct terrorist attacks on their own, as with the Boston Marathon, and with Fazliddin Kurbanov in Sen. Sessions's list - "After coming to the United States with his family as a refugee, Kurbanov is said to have converted back to Islam and radicalized." And from Breitbart's article, none of these people has been arrested, let alone tried and convicted, of any violation of U.S. law.

As I've already said, there are plenty of ISIS supporters among our fellow American citizens, as a new study from George Washington University makes clear. Most were not born and raised in Islamic families but converted later in life. This contrasts with, for example, Syrian refugees, most of whom are born Musllims.

Also, not mentioned in this article but common knowledge, non-Arabic converts to Islam often change their names, as with Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali and Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar, so you can't tell just from an American suspect's name what his or her background was. The article emphasizes the diversity of ISIS's American support. African-Americans used to dismiss their original name as a "slave name"; I don't know how common this is now.

Donald Trump may want to deny that one of those arrested is an American military veteran, but it's true; his name is Tairod Pugh. rwetmore and lennygoran: Pugh's last known American address was in Neptune, NJ. But then, Pugh was indicted by a grand jury in Brooklyn, and may now be in a jail near me.

ISIS Followers in U.S. Are Diverse and Young
By ERIC SCHMITT
DEC. 1, 2015

WASHINGTON — American authorities this year have arrested nearly five dozen people in the United States for helping to support or plot with the Islamic State, according to a new study, the largest number of terrorism-related arrests in the country in a single year since September 2001. The report, “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa,” was made public on Tuesday.

The Islamic State recruits defy any single profile, the study found, although they are younger than previous terrorism suspects, are drawn heavily from converts to Islam and reflect increasingly prominent roles for women in the terrorist organization.

A demographic snapshot of the 71 individuals arrested on charges related to the Islamic State since March 2014, including 56 this year, emerged from a comprehensive review of social media accounts and legal documents of nearly 400 American sympathizers of the Islamic State conducted by researchers at George Washington University.

The volume and diversity of those arrested underscore the growing challenge the F.B.I. and local law enforcement agencies face in trying to identify, monitor and, if necessary, apprehend suspects at a time when the Islamic State has sharply increased its appeal to Westerners through Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

The Islamic State emerged from a group of militants in Iraq to take over large portions of Iraq and Syria, and now threatens other countries in Europe and elsewhere. “The individuals range from hardened militants to teenage girls, petty criminals and college students,” said Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the university’s program on extremism, which conducted the study. “The diversity is staggering.”

Even before the recent attacks in Paris, at least three dozen people in the United States suspected of ties to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were under heavy electronic or physical surveillance, according to American officials. Those under investigation typically have little terrorism expertise or support from a cell, making it even more difficult for the authorities to predict or detect who might carry out a strike. “For law enforcement, it’s extremely difficult to determine who makes a big leap from keyboard jihadist to doing something,” said Dr. Vidino, who has studied Islamism for 15 years.

The people in the George Washington University study ranged from a 15-year-old boy to Tairod Pugh, a former Air Force officer who was 47 at the time of his arrest. The average age of the American supporter of the Islamic State was 26, the report found, reflecting a pattern unfolding in other Western countries as social media attracts younger recruits. John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, has said that of the terrorism-related arrests in the past 18 months, mostly involving the Islamic State, 80 percent of those arrested were younger than 30, and 40 percent were under 21.

According to the study, about 14 percent of those arrested were women, and the vast majority were American citizens or permanent residents, emphasizing the threat the authorities are combating from homegrown recruits, compared with foreigners infiltrating the country.

Some 40 percent of those arrested were converts to Islam, a larger representation among American supporters of the Islamic State than the 23 percent of American Muslims over all who are converts, according to the study.

Slightly more than half of those arrested had tried to travel abroad, most likely to Iraq or Syria, or were arrested during their travels to conflict zones, the report said. At least seven Americans have died fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq or Syria.

But American authorities have recently detected a trend that they believe shows the effect of the group’s new message to stay at home and carry out attacks there: There has been a significant drop in the number of Americans seeking to go to Syria and Iraq to join the group. Counterterrorism officials say that since July, an average of two Americans a month have tried to travel or successfully traveled to Islamic State territory, compared with nine a month over the previous year.

More than half of those charged were arrested in an operation involving an informant or an undercover agent, the report said, a tactic that has caused tensions between the F.B.I. and some American Muslims.

The story of a newlywed couple arrested in August in Mississippi as they began a trip to Syria to join the Islamic State illustrates several of these trends. The couple, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 22, were on their way to the airport in Columbus when they were arrested by F.B.I. agents after unwittingly making travel plans with undercover federal agents on social media that included discussing a trip to Syria via Greece and Turkey as a honeymoon ruse.

That case was just one of about 900 open inquiries that the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said were related to the Islamic State. Most of them have not become wide-ranging investigations, because they were generated by tips that were not substantiated. According to law enforcement officials, the F.B.I. typically has about 10,000 open counterterrorism inquiries.

The Islamic State’s use of social media to recruit followers has been widely reported, but Dr. Vidino said the study found that paths to radicalization were varied: Some responded to online propaganda; others sought meaning in like-minded groups that actually travel to Syria and Iraq.

Much of the study’s research focused on the Twitter activities of about 300 individuals identified as American supporters of the Islamic State. Nearly a third of those accounts are said to be operated by women. The American Islamic State adherents who traveled to war zones posted real-time updates of their exploits, the report said, and at times scolded supporters of the group back home “for their lack of commitment to the cause.”

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

A threat, even an empty threat, can be as effective as the real thing, and is much easier and cheaper. Besides, what if the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from ISIS and Bashar al-Assad hide a few baddies? That's reason to check the refugees out, which we do though the Europeans haven't been able to, but not to deny all of them sanctuary.

John F wrote:A threat, even an empty threat, can be as effective as the real thing

Please explain this to me, because it doesn't make any sense. You're actually claiming that ISIS infiltrating the West with its members through the Syrian migration crisis and subsequently conducting attacks all over the West via such members is as effective as an empty threat that they are doing it with no attacks being ever conducted by such members?

Moreover, for what tactical reason or advantage would ISIS have in opting to not to use the migrant crisis to further infiltrate the West with its members? Why is in their interest, short and long term, to not do it? Moreover still, explain how and why it doesn't present a once in lifetime, golden opportunity, for them to infiltrate the West with many more of their members?

I mean, I'm trying to see beyond logic 0.1 here, which is about as far as I need to go unless I'm missing something here.

Last edited by rwetmore on Sat Dec 05, 2015 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

I never claimed it was a fact that what ISIS claims it's doing, it's actually doing. We don't have total proof yet.

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

And of course, it's *possible* ISIS could be lying about it, but that's trivially true.

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves﻿ up and hurry off as if nothing﻿ has happened."
-Winston Churchill

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!”
–Charles Mackay

"It doesn't matter how smart you are - if you don't stop and think."
-Thomas Sowell

"It's one of the functions of the mainstream news media to fact-check political speech and where there are lies, to reveal them to the voters."
-John F. (of CMG)

PARIS — The third attacker at the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people were killed in the terrorist attacks here last month, was a 23-year-old native of northeastern France who had gone to fight in Syria, a lawyer for his family said Wednesday. Without giving a name, the authorities confirmed that the last Bataclan attacker had been identified, and the lawyer later said he was Foued Mohamed-Aggad.

It was Mr. Mohamed-Aggad’s mother who first alerted the authorities that her son was probably one of the gunmen who opened fire on concertgoers on Nov. 13, the lawyer, Françoise Cotta, said in a phone interview. Mr. Mohamed-Aggad’s mother had “been without news of him for several months,” Ms. Cotta said, when she received a text message from Syria saying that he had “died a martyr on Nov. 13.” Ms. Cotta said that the mother then asked her to alert the authorities and that a DNA match was made.

Mr. Mohamed-Aggad was one of a group of young men from Strasbourg and its region, friends and brothers, who left for Syria at the end of 2013, according to the lawyer and the French news media. All were reported to have been in contact with a man identified as one of the principal French jihadist recruiters, Mourad Farès, who is now in prison here. Their departure from working-class districts of housing projects, reported by the French news media, caused a stir. Mr. Mohamed-Aggad lived with his mother in a housing project in the small town of Wissembourg, about 40 miles north of Strasbourg.

Mr. Farès was described as “an especially dangerous individual, close to terrorist jihadist movements,” by the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, after his arrest in Turkey last year. Of the 10 from the Strasbourg area who went to Syria in 2013, two appear to have been killed in combat, while seven returned to France and were arrested. They include Mr. Mohamed-Aggad’s brother, who is also in jail. Their arrest in Strasbourg in May 2014 was extensively reported. Only Foued Mohamed-Aggad remained behind in Syria, according to Ms. Cotta and the French news media...

The police have been working to identify all the assailants, but it has been a painstaking process because some traveled under false names and, in some cases, their bodies were badly damaged after they detonated the explosives they were wearing. The police have yet to determine the identities of two of the attackers at the Stade de France who posed as migrants to enter Europe through Greece, and of one of the gunmen who attacked restaurants and bars, who is thought to have died in a police raid on an apartment in the Paris suburb of St.-Denis...